Rokudaime
by Imbrii
Summary: A series of drabbles about what it might be like if various Konoha notables become Hokage. [Featured so far: Sakura, Hinata, Shikamaru, and Leex2] Update: Tenten added.
1. Sakura  Specious

**Notes:** This will be a series of drabbles about what might happen when various Konoha ninja become Hokage. The tone, style, length, and pairings will vary. Pairings will get nothing more than a brief mention, if they come up at all. Some characters will be featured more than once. There will be spoilers up to the current manga arc for some of these, and possible character death. I'd like to do at least one for everyone in Naruto's age group.

But enough talk, on with the drabbles. I'm particularly fond of Dying Dream and Girls Don't Cry.

* * *

"I'd promised you I'd bring him back. Promise of a lifetime. I didn't..." Naruto's voice broke, but no tears fell. They'd been expecting this too long. 

Sakura, the Sixth Hokage, shook her head. "There's no need to apologize. You kept your promise as best you could. There was no other way."

She looked down, thinking of the way cats left grisly "presents" for their owners. Apparently foxes did too.

Fingers combed through dark hair in a way she'd never been allowed to, but it was matted with blood and gave her no illusions.

"In the end, we just weren't enough."


	2. Shikamaru The Normal Life

All Shikamaru ever wanted was to be average. Average skills, average wife, average kids, average life. It would be easy and he could live out his days in peace (as much as a life of a shinobi's could be, that is.) 

Turns out life's a bitch and completely shattered any semblance of normalcy and his dream of a quiet life. While adjusting his position on the tree branch, he decided it was all because he passed the Chuunin exam first—that'd made him stand out too much. He should've been lazier about it.

"Hokage-sama? Please stop hiding; you really need to come to the meeting! Naruto-san promises he won't try to beat you up any more, and Sakura-san says she'll make sure he's good (or else)! Hokage-sama?"

So bothersome. Why did he ever let that old bat convince him into this?

Oh right, because she'd threatened to kill him. Women were such pains. At least the oversized hat proved useful in keeping out the pesky sunlight.

"Hokage-samaaaaaaaa!" his hapless aide called again. The poor dolt had no hope of finding him anytime soon, being only a chuunin.

The meeting could wait; he had a very important appointment with some shuteye.


	3. Lee Martyr

Rock Lee was the most bizarre, enthusiastic, and shortest-lived Hokage. He was polite and respected by other villages, though they weren't sure what to make of his quirks.

He'd only reigned 4 years when Hidan reformed and sought revenge. Nobody knew how to kill an immortal. Yoshino and Chouji died before Lee could intervene.

That day, he did something nobody had ever seen—he opened the 8th and final chakra gate, Death. At the cost of his own life, he dragged the last Akatsuki member down.

Everybody was surprised when Gaara attended the funeral.

Everybody was bewildered when Gaara wept.


	4. Hinata In His Name

When Naruto died, Hyuuga Hinata underwent a drastic personality change. After grieving for weeks locked up in her room, she emerged with her head high and shoulders set. In Naruto's memory, she could change. The stone monument of fallen heroes was her anchor. He never looked at her in life, but maybe now…

She became the head of the Hyuuga and abolished the separation between the houses. She took up Naruto's dream. She asked Kiba out on a date.

Nobody understood how this strong, quiet woman had been forged, but the decision of who should be the Rokudaime was unanimous.

Not one person _ever_ dared speak over her soft voice.


	5. Lee Dying Dream

**Notes: **This one is different since nobody is 6th Hokage yet, but it's close enough I decided to include it anyway.

* * *

Akatsuki was dead, and Naruto was dying. Fighting the organization and Sasuke at the same time had pushed past his regenerative abilities. His peers didn't know what to do. Sakura and Neji wished they'd learned Chiyo's life exchange technique.

"What'll happen to the Kyuubi?" asked Shikamaru, always practical.

Nobody knew, but Naruto wasn't going to take any chances.

"Somebody else has to take him."

Nobody wanted to…it was asking too much to willingly take a stigma, to take a destructive monster into your head. To be the thing their parents had warned them about.

"We don't even know how to seal him!"

"I do," answered Naruto, too close to death to care about secrets. "I stole the scroll. I know what they did, and I know how to alter it so you don't need a baby."

Sakura volunteered. Naruto refused, he cared about her too much to pass on such misfortune. "You're scary enough as it is, Sakura-chan. And you're the only one of Team 7 left."

They all shifted uncomfortably, and waited in silence. The technique might not even work, it could end with more than one dead.

Rock Lee saw it as the choice between his dream and his village, which was no choice at all. "I'll do it."

"Thanks, Thickbrows."

Afterwards, it wasn't hard to think of a new goal. Lee had promised Naruto to protect Sakura, even if she didn't need it. He'd become Hokage and get everyone to acknowledge Naruto should've been in his place.


	6. Tenten Girls Don't Cry

Neji finds her in the little U-shaped balcony, Team Guy's meeting spot from their genin days. He wishes he'd thought to come here before the memorial stone. 

She's leaning forward, hands clasped and elbows on her knees in an uncharacteristically unfeminine position. For once, her three weapon scrolls are absent, leaving only a beautiful, forlorn woman in an embroidered shirt with a mandarin collar.

He says nothing about her tears. "The ceremony is starting soon; it would be bad for the Rokudaime Hokage to be late to her own inauguration."

"I've been acting Hokage since the funeral, this is just a formality. It can wait." Tenten doesn't let anybody but Neji see her cry, because she's supposed to be strong, and strong women don't _cry_. _Ninja_ don't cry. Hokage _don't _cry.

A sob tries to escape so she bites her lip viciously. Still staring at the ground between her feet, she murmurs, "I never thought I'd say that I miss them. All those years they were so _embarrassing_, so infuriating. I wished I'd been put on another team every night I was a genin. _You _were the only thing that kept me from pulling my hair out."

Her voice starts to wobble, and her chin periodically drips tears. "But all I can think of is how they'd be cheering right now, in that horribly loud and humiliating way of theirs."

Her short fingers curl into fists as her hands fall to her knees. "I miss their stupid self-imposed rules, their ugly hair, their enormous eyebrows, their shiny teeth, their hideous green suits, their bizarre father-son relationship, their melodrama, their speeches…"

Neji remains silent, but puts a hand on her shoulder.

"_I miss them_, and all I'd ever wanted was for them to _go away_," she bursts out, finally meeting Neji's gaze, face shiny with fresh tears. "It's not fair. He never even got to be a jounin! It's not _fair_."

"It isn't," he agrees, kneeling down in front of her. "But life had never been fair to Lee in the first place. That didn't stop him from trying, from moving on and making the best of it." _From fighting against his destiny._ "In the end, he fulfilled his dream, even if he was never officially ranked as jounin. Nobody will deny that he died a hero."

"A great ninja," Tenten quotes with a sad, bitter smile.

A pale thumb gently wipes the tears away from her eyes. "Come, Hokage-sama. It's time to realize your own dream."

She pushes his hand away as she stands, letting their fingers intertwine briefly. It's then she notices Neji's hitai-ate is maroon instead of navy.

Back straight, she takes the matching one from his outstretched hand and slips it on. Head high, she goes to face the village, _her _village.


End file.
